Archive for December, 2013

Hard to believe an entire year has rolled by since I last posted a Best and Worst of Flight Training blog (you can read the 2012 one here). This is my fourth annual Best Of/Worst Of list, and while I fully expected to see some of the same names on the roster (Hello, City of Santa Monica!), this year’s tally brings some brand-new players to our flight training game.

On an uplifting note, it took some digging for me to find five “worst” candidates for 2013. In previous years, it seems there was more bad than good.

Worst:

Federal budget cutbacks prompted the U.S. Air Force to reduce flying time for pilots, meaning fewer training hours. A Wall Street Journal article maintains they’re flying fewer hours than military pilots in some European allies, India, and China.

The same budget cutbacks kept the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds from making appearances at airshows across the nation. What does this have to do with flight training? Well, I may be grasping here, but we know military aircraft are a huge draw at airshows, and it’s likely that reduced attendance means fewer people (children in particular) got to forge bonds with aviation that could pay off down the road with the creation of new pilots.

Another “self-taught pilot”a la the Barefoot Bandit was accused of flying a stolen airplane that belonged to a soldier on deployment in Afghanistan. What makes this story doubly sad is that the 18-year-old who allegedly took the Cessna 150 was studying to be an airframe and powerplant mechanic. The teen has pleaded guilty, and sentencing is set for Jan. 6.

Santa Monica Airport makes the list for the third year in a row. A fatal accident in which an airplane crashed into a hangar (but did not cause any fatalities among people on the ground) has added fuel to the City of Santa Monica’s ongoing campaign to close the airport, which is home to at least six active flight schools. The city is now involved in a lawsuit to gain control of the airport.

The FAA has decided that overweight pilots are a cause for concern, even though there apparently aren’t any safety statistics to back this up, and has issued a proposed rule that would require pilots with a neck size of greater than 17 inches or a body mass index greater than 40 to be screened for and possibly treated for sleep apnea. [UPDATE! The FAA announced it is putting the rule on hold—but that doesn’t mean the issue is going away.]

Best:

Thousands of student pilots told us the good, the bad, and the ugly about their flight training experiences, and helped us to find the Best Flight School and Best Flight Instructor in the Flight Training Initiative Awards. The winners—San Carlos Flight Center and Conor Dancy of Aviation Adventures—are profiled in the upcoming February issue. We’ll be doing it all again in 2014, so make sure you vote!

After the FAA stonewalled repeated requests from AOPA and EAA to consider a movement toward a driver’s license medical for private pilots,two members of Congress introduced a bill that would allow pilots of noncommercial VFR flights to use the driver’s license medical standard to fly aircraft of up to 6,000 pounds and no more than six seats.

The airlines are hiring. This means regional pilots will have an opportunity to move to the majors, and flight instructors will be moving on to the regionals, leaving flight instructor openings for new CFIs.

Shell Aviation has been working on a lead-free “performance drop-in” replacement for 100LL that could power any aircraft in the piston fleet. The new formula has passed preiminary tests on Lycoming engines on the ground.

Now it’s your turn. What would you add? How was your 2013, flying-wise? Please let me know in the Comments section. Thanks for reading the Flight Training blog, and I wish you blue skies and lots of flying in 2014.—Jill W. Tallman

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The FAA provides CFI candidates no help in the way of marketing tips for folks looking to make a living providing flight instruction. If you are simply relying on your local flight school to do the work for you, you are making a mistake: Flight schools on the whole are some of the worst businesses that exist when it comes to properly marketing their offerings. Too many rely on walk-ins, web site hits, or word of mouth.

Further, your local flight school probably wants you to work as an independent contractor, not a full-time employee. However, even if you are an employee, the chances are you will only get paid based on billable hours. This is where you have a direct say in generating some of your own income.

Marketing can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want it to be:

At a minimum, have some business cards printed up, and give each new client six or seven cards to distribute to people who may be genuinely interested in learning to fly (or getting back into flying or earning a new rating).

Add a signature to your email that lists your credentials.

Utilize Facebook and Twitter to advertise not only your services, but also the accomplishments of your clientele. To minimize the risk of inappropriate material being posted, create a business page/Twitter handle that is separate from your personal one.

Even if you are working for a flight school, create a simple website that gets to the heart of what you do and offer. Minimize the number of links people need to hit. Advertise what you offer (more on this in a bit). Use your website to brag about what your clientele have accomplished, complete with photos or videos of recent first solo flights, checkride completions, et cetera.

Direct mail is old-fashioned, but it still works. You can talk to your local post office about how to target certain ZIP codes (those with higher incomes) and send out a professional-looking flyer or brochure advertising yourself and your flight school. In fact, you should confirm that the flight school is OK with this, and if it is, ask the school to share in the expense. If it won’t, use your contact number on the brochure, not the school’s.

Coupons. People are suckers for coupons. Work with local businesses—hotels, grocery stores, barber shops—to place and distribute coupons for intro/sight-seeing flights. Include them in your mailers and on your Facebook page and website. Make sure you include an expiration date that is 4-6 months out. This motivates the buyer/user to come in and use it, and also protects you from spikes in fuel prices.

Local events. During the holiday season, set up a booth in the local mall that has a running DVD about flying and has a few ground-school kits and flyers. You will have to coordinate this to keep it staffed, and it might be expensive up front, but people love to give and receive sightseeing flights for gifts. Do the same thing at local fairs, school events, et cetera. See the note above about expiration dates (for Christmas sales, extend the expiration date to Labor Day). Keep notes on the trickle-down business you create from this.

What do you offer? Besides being a CFI, talk up what you can add to that. Are you an instrument instructor? Multiengine? Can you offer seaplane training or a tailwheel endorsement? Come up with a package or a series to offer for your sightseeing rides. It should include a photo of some sort or a video if you can do it safely. If you can mount a camera on the strut of a Cessna, you can offer a fantastic memory to your customer. If you can get a great aerial shot of a local landmark that you fly over routinely, you can sell the same one over and over, but personalize it with each customer’s name, date, et cetera.. They may never come back to take lessons, but they may refer people to you for training or just for more rides. Remember, you want to fly to get paid, so it doesn’t matter what you are doing to produce billable hours.

What do you want to specialize in? Are you into night cross-country flights? Some instructors don’t like missing family time at night, so maybe you can become the go-to night CFI. Or do you want to do IFR training? How about IFR training on long cross-country trips? I got several vacations from my clients when I was a full-time CFI for which I actually got paid.

There is much that you can do to market what you do and what you offer. It isn’t hard, and I have not even scratched the surface of it here. Whatever you do, keep detailed records on what works and what does not so that you don’t throw good money after bad. If you do this correctly, you will probably make more money than a regional airline first officer can dream of, and maybe as much as regional captain. If you leave to pursue a flying career elsewhere, you may find that your former employers will make a strong pitch to keep you or will offer to pay you for some of your contacts, et cetera.

As I sit at home and watch the snow falling, I can’t help but think how much I’d rather be out taking a flight lesson in my Cessna 172 Skyhawk. But when the weather is bad, we student pilots are grounded. Just because the weather is bad, it doesn’t mean that you can’t continue your lessons. So here are some suggestions to move ahead in the flight training process.

If you’re like me and studying for the knowledge test, the pause you get in cold weather is an ideal time to get some cramming in. I’m using Sporty’s Study Buddy app, and I find the flash cards to be especially helpful. Speaking of flash cards, check out these great ones from the Air Safety Institute to help you learn your airspace types and runway signage and markings.

I hope these help in the study process. Please feel free to pass your recommendations on to me (benet.wilson@aopa.org) for a future blog post.—Benét J. Wilson

Are you interested in learning to fly? Sign up for a free student trial membership in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and receive six issues of Flight Training magazine plus lots of training tools and resouces for student pilots. Click here for more information.

Jean Moule last wrote about flying in Hawaii for the Flight Training blog. She is an emerita faculty member of Oregon State University, and a published writer and artist. Visit her website.—Ed.

From left to right: Hoodoo ski area, Big Lake, Mount Washington

During my years of ski instructing and ski patrolling I have “gone over the pass” many, many times. And I have spent hours on patrol handling dispatch at the top of Hoodoo Mountain Resort. From there you can see what we call Sand Mountains, and the multiple snowmobile tracks that climb up their smooth, snow-covered banks as high as possible.

Weather in Oregon can be overcast and cloudy most of the fall and winter. I have a shirt that says, “Oregon State Rain Festival: January 1 to December 31.” Rain and overcast had set in, yet there was a week of clear, sunny weather, and my hopes of flying over the Cascades to the Sisters airport and back reawakened.

Three Sisters top middle; Sand Mountains, bottom left

I had not flown above 5,000 feet yet. With the pass at 4,800, the surrounding peaks at 10, 000, we would go first to 5,500, then 7,500, and then 9,500 as needed to help ensure distance from other airplanes. I was excited. Sounded like more fun than practicing stalls. My CFI was willing. My husband-photographer would go along.

Ground school before the flight had Steve explaining the angle needed as we came up on the elevation of the ridge as the high and low pressure might make the turbulence more than we (I) could handle. As we took off and headed east, first over our four acres and then over the towns in Santiam Canyon that I knew so well, we noted the smoke from home chimneys rising straight up in the cloudless calm skies.

As we climbed higher and talked about potential landing spots in the seemingly endless forests in these mountains, the tops of the Three Sisters came into view. We noticed the snow on the top of North Sister being blown strongly south and west by the winds coming up from Eastern Oregon.

“Sand Mountains” are really part of a string of craters.

Sure enough, as we came to the summit of Santiam Pass, seeing the road under us winding its way over, the winds began to shake us up quite a bit. “I don’t like this!” I said. And, angled as we should be, I slowly turned us away and back into smoother air. But not before Rob took a photo of the ski area we have enjoyed for years. We saw the backside of Hoodoo Butte and the runs coming down in parallel rows. And, to our amazement, we discovered that the Sand Mountains were actually part of a row of small craters. The view from the air opened our minds to this incredible new understanding of the earth terrain we had travelled and viewed for years.

And I had a new respect and understanding of winds.—Jean Moule

Are you interested in learning to fly? Sign up for a free student trial membership in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and receive six issues of Flight Training magazine plus lots of training tools and resouces for student pilots. Click here for more information.

Social Media Editor and student pilot Benét Wilson last wrote about lessons learned from her aviation friends.—Ed.

Beaded airplane ornament photo from CreativityinPieces.com

Now that we’ve all managed to survive Gray Thursday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, it’s time to get serious about how to show the holiday love to student pilots. My husband asked me for my Christmas list (but this is also good for Hanukkah, Kwanza, and Festivus), and everything on it was to help me with my flight training. So below, please enjoy my picks for student pilot gifts.

Flight bag. For my first year of training, I carried m gear in an AOPA tote bag. It just looked bad. So at this year’s AOPA Summit, I bought the AOPA flight bag, which looks remarkably like this one offered by Sporty’s for $59.95.

Headphones. I used an old pair from the AOPA Pilot magazine review cabinet. They were big, bulky, and uncomfortable. So when I had the chance to buy a slightly used Bose Aviation Headset X, I leapt at the chance. There are headsets out there with different features and prices, so use this handy headset finder created by MyPilotStore.com to find the best ones for your student pilot.

Kneeboard. I originally inherited a kneeboard that curved to my letg, But it was raised, so it was hard to use in that tight Cessna 172 Skyhawk cockpit I use. So I went over to Aircraft Spruce and bought this ASA IFR and VFR kneeboard for a bargain $14.95.

Sporty’s Study Buddy iPad app. If your student pilot is studying for the FAA knowledge test, spend the $9.99 for this app. it fatures three modes— learning, simulated tests, and flashcards—and covers everything on the exam. You can even take practice tests in preparation for the real thing.

Leatherman Wingman Multitool. I used to have trouble taking the oil cap off during my aircraft check. So now I have this handy tool, available for $39.95 in the AOPA Store, in my flight bag and I’m ready for any task.

It’s one thing to read about the number of American pilots who have embraced the expat opportunities overseas, especially in Asia, but it’s something else to hear it on the radio. I recently flew a trip to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Saigon, and along the way, I heard a large number of pilots flying for Korean Air, Emirates, Dragonair, Cathay Pacfic, Singapore Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air (a Philippine carrier), and Vietnam Airlines that were clearly from the United States (as well as Canada, Great Britain, and Australia). Korean, Emirates, and Cathay are very popular for American pilots because of the pay and the better living conditions in Seoul, Dubai, and Hong Kong, respectively (especially the pay).

I know many pilots who have pursued these opportunities, and many are having the time of their lives.

Americans are needed here because flight training in Asia is virtually nonexistent. There is no infrastructure (almost no general aviation airports, no GA airplanes , no 100LL fuel, no instructors), and the airspace system was not designed to accommodate flight training. The military owns the airspace and is not willing to share.

Most of the Asians learn to fly in the United States (including on Guam, U.S. territory in the Pacific) and Australia, then come home. However, they enter the work force very inexperienced and with a nearly pathological fear of hand-flying a big airplane. Americans are desired because of their experience. We’ve spent years learning how to fly, and we’ve flown in the most demanding airspace in the world. Further, Americans love to turn everything off and just fly. The Asian pilots have yet to embrace that concept, and they know they need to.

This is not to say that Americans are always welcomed. Sometimes they are viewed as a necessary evil. But many pilots go on to long, happy, productive careers living as ex-pats, taking advantage of the ability to move around to different countries every couple of years while seeing parts of the world they’d never get to see otherwise. Once you have this experience, it’s also easy to parlay it into a job as an instructor teaching the locals in the simulators.

There are also those who go abroad for a few years and then come home. In years past, pilots with international experience could just about pick out the airline they wanted to come home and work for. It remains to be seen if that holds with the new round of hiring. Also remaining to be seen, for that matter, is just how many pilots will even bother to come home. Foreign compensation packages have gotten so good that many will find such a move hard to justify.

Moving overseas to fly is a huge commitment, but if you are open-minded and can get past what you think “oughta be,” it can be an extremely rewarding, fun lifestyle—even if only on a temporary basis. After all, what better way to see the world than to get someone else to pay the bill?—Chip Wright